Grump
04-16-2013, 05:08 PM
Oh, the mysteries of the SAECO lead hardness tester!
Bought some mostly WW lead and at first thought it was almost as hard as a small leftover cache of SAECO 8/BHN 14 stuff left on hand. Not quite, the ingots' corners were sharper and that fudged the impact test. Anyway, a small melt of that stuff yielded H&G 68s that tested SAECO 10/BHN 22.
Or so I thought.
Mixed them 1:5 (old 8s to new 10s) and 1:6 while smelting (lost count somewhere and had to adjust, with 1 lb of SAECO 5/HBH 8 bullets that wouldn't shoot in my gun (too small) and about 1/4-lb of range lead/old cull bullets per potful.
Now the bullets from this mix read SAECO 3 to 5, mostly 4-4.5 ish, which happens to be the same as last year's "pistol" batch that seems to be shooting fine in the .45 at about 800 fps or so. First loads were with some commercial "NRA" type 50/50, not sure if I'm into the TAC #1 lubed stuff yet.
Since 9mm is next on my list, I'm now wondering just howinnaheck this happened????
At least I poured the ingots on a scale so each ingot is pretty precisely one pound apiece. Will be using the scale with the antimony and 63/37 solder (or maybe not, fill-out was pretty good at indicated 725° F (dial WAS calibrated a few years ago) and barely-frosty on the edges bullets most of the time, added 1/4-lb of solder twice to 15-lb pots when fill-out of the bases got a hair rounded.) when I go for a harder alloy.
I do notice that before the SAECO goes up to the witness mark, the Vernier scale reading drops from 5 and sometimes 6, back down to around 4 and sometimes 3.
My tough thumbnail can groove the lead something like half the thickness of 0.3 mm for those of you "calibrated" to mechanical pencil leads.
Some dross does come up as I add the almost-1 lb ingots to the melt, but not a lot. No bluish coloring like burning off lots of tin.
Bought some mostly WW lead and at first thought it was almost as hard as a small leftover cache of SAECO 8/BHN 14 stuff left on hand. Not quite, the ingots' corners were sharper and that fudged the impact test. Anyway, a small melt of that stuff yielded H&G 68s that tested SAECO 10/BHN 22.
Or so I thought.
Mixed them 1:5 (old 8s to new 10s) and 1:6 while smelting (lost count somewhere and had to adjust, with 1 lb of SAECO 5/HBH 8 bullets that wouldn't shoot in my gun (too small) and about 1/4-lb of range lead/old cull bullets per potful.
Now the bullets from this mix read SAECO 3 to 5, mostly 4-4.5 ish, which happens to be the same as last year's "pistol" batch that seems to be shooting fine in the .45 at about 800 fps or so. First loads were with some commercial "NRA" type 50/50, not sure if I'm into the TAC #1 lubed stuff yet.
Since 9mm is next on my list, I'm now wondering just howinnaheck this happened????
At least I poured the ingots on a scale so each ingot is pretty precisely one pound apiece. Will be using the scale with the antimony and 63/37 solder (or maybe not, fill-out was pretty good at indicated 725° F (dial WAS calibrated a few years ago) and barely-frosty on the edges bullets most of the time, added 1/4-lb of solder twice to 15-lb pots when fill-out of the bases got a hair rounded.) when I go for a harder alloy.
I do notice that before the SAECO goes up to the witness mark, the Vernier scale reading drops from 5 and sometimes 6, back down to around 4 and sometimes 3.
My tough thumbnail can groove the lead something like half the thickness of 0.3 mm for those of you "calibrated" to mechanical pencil leads.
Some dross does come up as I add the almost-1 lb ingots to the melt, but not a lot. No bluish coloring like burning off lots of tin.